


ilia rumpens

by soupypictures



Series: FEMA trailer stories [2]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M, Sexual Content, brushes with death (bc apocalypse), but no graphic descriptions of violence because that's not what i'm here for, but who really thinks we ought to be?, most definitely NOT canon compliant in any sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 19:22:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupypictures/pseuds/soupypictures
Summary: Jesus has a close call on what should be a routine run and now that he has someone he cares about it scares the shit out of him to be that close to death.Sequel to "Shared Space"





	ilia rumpens

**Author's Note:**

> alright this has taken wayyyyyy too long to get here and also, back on my bullshit again with the pretentious latin titles. you can google it. we can talk about it in the comments? nothing more i'd rather discuss if i'm bein' honest here.

Paul stumbled to the treeline, shaken to the core. He was exhausted and hours past the time he’d given to be expected back. Propped up against a tree out of the line of sight of the guards on watch he bent over and threw up the meager contents of his stomach. It hadn't been an easy run. It'd been up there in his top five worst, but never had he felt this much _fear_. It had paralyzed him with a dozen walkers converging on him. 

_I can't let anyone see me like this_ , he thought, draining his battered water bottle. They'd make him drag someone else out into danger. Straightening his jacket he spun around the tree and effected a confident gait that he didn't feel. He waved at the guards and waited for the gates to be pulled open. 

“We were about to send out a search party!” It was William up on the wall shouting down at him, his only stroke of luck. Anyone else would have been able to read this all over his face. _Daryl is going to flip his shit_.

“All good!” Paul lied. “Got hung up out about five miles out but nothing bad. Found what we were after.” He held up the bag of tools they’d lost to a herd a month ago. “Just where Jesse said it’d be.” Once inside the walls the exhaustion fully hit. It was a relief to find the trailer empty. He took a quick shower and brushed his teeth before collapsing onto the bed— _their_ bed—and falling into a restless unconsciousness.

\---

Even before the end, Paul was a light sleeper. He didn't have any stories about when he was a baby, those had been lost with his parents, so he couldn’t say if it was nature or nurture. Growing up in group homes and in and out of foster care it was advantageous to wake up when a door snicked open, or when the mattress shifted due to the weight of another person. After the end, that learned skill (or innate ability) served him well when he was out on his own, and then later when he linked up with Hilltop. He could fall asleep anywhere because he knew he’d wake up at the slightest noise; at a snapped twig, the gurgle of the dead, the hammer cocking back on a shotgun, the hustle and bustle of Hilltop once the sun rose.... Out recruiting for weeks at a time, this was how he survived.

What woke him this time was Daryl sliding his arm over Paul’s side and nuzzling up against the back of his neck. “Hey,” he choked out, grabbing at Daryl’s hand and holding it to his chest.

“Run go okay? Heard you got back late.”

And he could lie. Daryl couldn’t see his face, he would probably pass off any weird voice thing on being just awoken from sleep. But that wasn’t a real option. His mind had spun into the terror of every _what if_ as he ran home from his brush with death and it hadn’t dissipated. He couldn’t lie. “No.”

“No, you didn’t get back late?”

He opened his eyes and turned over under Daryl’s arm. Daryl was just a watery outline in the dead of night, the thin stream of light filtering in from a lantern hung up on the next trailer over just reflecting in his eyes. “No, I ... the run didn’t go okay.” 

Daryl was silent.

“I told William everything went fine. I didn't want anyone worrying. Didn't want them thinking I can't handle it out there. I just—this time, I was scared.” 

“Everyone else has to go out with a partner, you know I’d go—”

“No, it’s ... It was stupid, and then some bad luck, and some more stupid shit, and yes I almost died, probably, but it wasn't anything I hadn't gotten out of before. I just kept thinking about you, about how if I _did_ die, if this time I couldn’t get my knife around fast enough, I'd be missing out on so much. I was scared about what you'd do if I didn't come back, where you'd go.”

“Shouldn't play the what if game,” Daryl said solemnly. “Never leads anywhere good.”

“Anything could happen,” he whispered, ignoring Daryl's warning. The night around them felt like a confessional and he found himself releasing the darkest of his thoughts. “A herd could come through tomorrow and wipe out this whole place. I could trip and break an ankle and get taken out by a lone roamer and no one would know. You could—”

“Paul, stop.” 

“And I was thinking, right before I got my knife out of the tree, that I didn't wanna die without even getting to kiss you. And then I felt awful for thinking that, because I don’t even know if that’s ... if you feel that way. About me.”

“I do. I—” he broke off and Paul's eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to catch the conflict resting across his face. He reached up and slid his hand around to the back of Daryl's neck.

“Why haven't we?”

“For a long time I didn't know what it was I wanted, and I never learned how to ask for anything. And I figured... I figured if it was somethin’ you wanted, you'd ask. You're good at all that.”

“I’m asking,” he whispered. “Please.” He closed his eyes and Daryl’s mouth touched his.

Since the day they met Paul had been wondering about this. About how Daryl would touch him in an intimate space. How he'd kiss. Running through the field with him hot on his tail, stealing his gun and letting it get wrestled away, leaning against him in that car feigning unconsciousness to gather intel ... at the back of his mind the whole time was _what's he about_ and _can I have it_. 

So he took it, opening his mouth to earn a quick gasp from the hunter, winding his arm around his neck and hauling him closer. Daryl came easily and Paul felt himself devoured. 

Paul knew he could be kind of a handful and often came on too strong. He’d held back with Daryl _knowing_ that anything close to his usual modus operandi would have scared him off. But now, with Daryl’s mouth hot against his own and his weight pressing him down onto the bed, all bets were off. He had a full body commitment to the cause, trying to get his hands everywhere at once—Daryl’s waist, his hips, around to his ass, trailing up his sides to cup his face.

Daryl pulled away at that. He was breathing hard and hid his face against Paul’s neck.

“Thank you,” Paul whispered. He clutched at Daryl’s shoulders to keep him close.

Daryl chuckled and whispered back, “You’re unbelievable.”

“What?”

“Touching me like I’m somethin’ precious. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve waking up in the morning without a rotter gnawing on my jugular and _you’re_ thanking _me_ for what, slobberin’ all over you?”

“You put your tongue in my mouth that’s hardly _all over me_ but if you wanted to put that tongue other places I’d be okay with that—”

“Stop.”

“Is that a _stop_ stop or is that an ‘I’m embarrassed but secretly pleased don’t actually stop’ stop?”

“Would you shut up?”

“Make me.”

Daryl growled and leaned up, did just that. 

\-----

Paul was pulled out of his half-sleep by the sleeping press of Daryl's hard cock against his ass. He groaned, helpless with the surge of want that ratcheted up rapidly. Daryl's breathing hitched and Paul felt him ease away with a curse. 

“No, please,” he begged without thought. He pulled on Daryl's arm to keep him close, grasped it with his right hand while reaching around with his left to urge Daryl's hips closer. “Please, I want it. Please.” He felt greedy in this pre-dawn, having fallen asleep with a bruised mouth and a full heart. _If I die today I wanna have this first_. He was going to keep taking what he could get.

“You even awake?” Daryl murmured, but he didn't pull away. 

“Yes, I'm awake.” Hand on Daryl's left hip to hold him close, Paul pressed his ass back to Daryl's groin.

“ _Christ_ , Paul. The fuck—” 

But Daryl wasn't pulling away, he wasn't pushing Paul off of him. He was still hard, and Paul could feel him again through his sweats. “If you want me—” 

“‘Course I do, fuck—” 

“Just get me the lube in the drawer.” 

“I don’t know .... Paul, I’ve never—”

“No, I’m not asking for that, just. In the drawer.” While Daryl rummaged Paul shimmied his sweats and boxers down over his ass and kicked them off.

“ _Jesus_.”

“C’mon, c’mon.” He held out his hand and Daryl pressed the small bottle there. Reaching up over his head to get his other hand involved Paul uncapped the bottle and slicked up a hand. “I want,” he breathed again, reaching for his words but falling short. He reached his hand back to smear the slick between his thighs. “Come here, on top of me.” Overwhelmed, he spread his thighs apart just enough and guided Daryl’s cock between them, clutched the sheets by his face and when he felt Daryl’s hands joining his, fingers grasping his, he melted into the bed as Dary rocked against him, close to where he _needed_ him and close enough. He wanted it just like this, pressed into the mattress by the weight of Daryl's warm body, the chorus of their harsh breaths and involuntary moans reminding him that he was alive. Alive and _wanted_. 

Daryl’s grip tightened and his hips stuttered. “Paul, I’m gonna—”

“Do it, please. Please,” he begged, and groaned when Daryl made one final thrust and finished, making a mess between his thighs. “Fuck.” He rolled over and took his cock in his hand and Daryl’s hand covered his, moved it away, took over. He moaned into Daryl’s mouth and came hard, mostly from Daryl’s hand on his cock but also from the closeness of their bodies, this intimate space they’d created for themselves, the feeling in his gut that he’d found what he’d been looking for out here after the end of the world.

Daryl used his shirt to clean him up, wiped his own hand on it and tossed it onto their pile of dirty clothes. “Not sending that to Miss Dana,” he noted and Paul laughed. 

“No, wouldn’t want to give her a heart attack.”

“Stupid, though, if you think about it.”

“Stupid?”

“Miss Dana’s probably done thousands of loads by now and how many were full of clothes soaked in walker guts, blood, brain matter? And we’re worried about her sensibilities bein’ offended because of a little come?”

“Well I wouldn’t call that a _little_ come.”

“You know that ain’t the point.”

Paul wasn’t too sure what the point actually was. “Maybe _you_ don’t care but I don’t really want to have Miss Dana wash that shirt, I’ll hand-wash it in the sink if I have to—”

“Nah, I ain’t sayin’ that. Just sayin’, it’s funny what we hold onto. Out here, all of this happening, and we still care about some stupid shit, if you looked at it objectively. Ain’t bad, not sayin’ that. Just... interestin’. How ... domestic we still are.”

Paul smiled. “Daryl Dixon, did you just ... philosophize? About the state of nature and humanity, using the metaphor of our spent passion on a dirty shirt you’d probably been wearing for five days straight?”

“Fuck you talking about, metaphor? Think you need some more sleep.”

“Are you always this romantic post-coital?”

“This is as romantic as I’m ever gonna be. Git over here, got a couple hours ‘fore we gotta get to it. Wanna spend that real quiet.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak this much,” Paul wondered, doing as Daryl asked and rolling back to his side to let Daryl be the big spoon. “Like it, though. Like knowing what you think. If getting off makes you talkative I think we’ll have to do that more often.”

“Babe, hush.”

Paul smiled into his pillow and hugged Daryl’s arm to his chest. _Babe_ , he thought. Pet names, another little domesticity he could get used to, one that could help to balance out the all the gore and their near-death _existence_ and the remainder of the bone-deep exhaustion that hadn’t dissipated after these nights spent in Daryl’s arms. 

_More of this_ , he begged. Then Paul slept.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at yessoupy on tumblr, ignoring twd canon like everyone else. he's ours now.


End file.
